This looks familiar to me

It seems Starbucks is not welcome in the North Fork, at least that's what we're hearing.Here's a bit from the Associated Press story:Residents of the North Fork of Long Island are apparently suffering from Frapuccino rage. The Starbucks global chain of coffee shops has moved into Greenport, Southold and Mattituck. The towns have long resisted ...

5 comments

Starbucks offers an atmosphere that appeals to a lot of people. Their marketing genius is much more than just the coffee.

However, if you like the coffee, you might argue that you prefer the strong flavor of Starbucks coffee, or that you just find that you have a favorite drink and you’re just used to buying it.

OR, if you’re me, you’re finding yourself tiring of paying such high prices for a cup of coffee, at any shop, and you’ve learned to brew your own espresso and can make your morning iced latte for less than $1 per “grande” sized cup.

As for the little guys, I think that the ones who started a great shop and then later became complacent about how they treat their customers can and deserve to lose their customers to Starbucks, or any other chain.

The shops that have deliver a great cup of coffee and related goodies (Hampton Coffee Company comes to mind) will survive against Starbucks or anyone else who may come along.

Agreed! If you offer a service that is better than the one across the street – people with find you and people will patronize you. Starbucks falls short in many categories that some good coffee shops have found and capitalized on.

In fact a really key reason starbucks has done so well is that they offer free Wireless Internet. As a business person I find myself looking for places that I know I can find a reliable internet connection, it’s almost more important to me than the quality of the coffee. I bet I’m not alone in this.